Page 184 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

Then Bianca lies down on the examination table, her stomach bare under the cold light of the room.

The doctor applies the ultrasound gel and positions the probe. The screen flickers to life—grainy, black and white—and a sound fills the room.

A heartbeat.

Fast, steady, insistent.

I didn’t expect it to affect me. Or rather, I had prepared myself to stay detached, to move through this appointment like a formality. But hearing that heartbeat at that pace, seeing that blurred shape on the screen—the outline of a head, the beginnings of limbs—moves me despite myself.

A baby. My baby?

The doctor begins to comment on what we’re seeing, pointing at the screen with her stylus, her tone calm and practiced, like someone who’s done this hundreds of times.

Bianca smiles at me—a smile that almost looks genuine.

“There we go,” the doctor says, stabilizing the image. “Everything looks good. Measurements place the pregnancy at around twelve weeks.”

I go still.

“And conception?”

“Approximately ten weeks ago, give or take a few days.”

“Is the dating that precise?”

“Yes,” she confirms calmly, unaware of the weight of what she’s just said.

Her words land with brutal clarity.

Ten weeks.

The Chicago acquisition trip. Ten days. End-October.

The numbers line up in my head with mechanical, unforgiving clarity.

Bianca gets dressed again, relaxed, still riding the quiet euphoria of what she’s just seen on the screen. She reaches for my hand.

I pull away.

She doesn’t understand yet. The doctor doesn’t notice, absorbed in entering data into her computer, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Actually,” I say to the doctor, keeping my voice perfectly neutral.

She looks up.

“Please remove my information from the file.”

The doctor looks from one to the other, suddenly alert. Bianca freezes.

“I’m not the father of this child.”

“What?” Bianca breathes.

I turn to her.

“Ten weeks ago, I was in the United States on business. Ten days away, Bianca. We didn’t sleep together before I left, and we didn’t after I came back. The dates don’t work. I’m not the father.”

She opens her mouth. Closes it.